We built this city on toilet rolls

From London to Sydney, Toronto to Timbuktu; cities from across the globe have been reimagined – using humble toilet rolls - in a special art work for WaterAid to mark World Toilet Day on Saturday 19 November.

Armed with just a pair of scissors, glue and tweezers, Paris-based artist, Anastassia Elias, 40, has created 10 mesmerising tiny cityscapes inside Andrex® toilet rolls to raise awareness of the 2.3 billion people – one in three of the world’s population – who do not have access to a safe, private toilet.

The toilet roll cities have been created alongside the release of Overflowing cities – WaterAid’s State of the World’s Toilet Report 2016 – which this year examines the state of city sanitation around the world.

More than 700 million people in towns and cities across the world are living without decent toilets. Around 100 million of these people have no choice but to do their business in the open – using roadsides, railway tracks, waste-ground and plastic bags dubbed ‘flying toilets’. As a result, disease can spread quickly.

Elias, who uses paper to build the intricate cityscapes inside toilet tubes, has chosen cities from both developing and developed countries; highlighting the fact that healthy cities are built on good sanitation. The cities she’s depicting are: London, New York, Toronto, Tokyo, Sydney, Stockholm, Bogota, Timbuktu, Dhaka and Agra.

The success of London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, Stockholm and Tokyo is, in part, because they all have safe sanitation systems that protect their inhabitants from diarrhoeal diseases.

However India, the world’s fastest growing economy, has 157 million people living in its towns and cities who do not have access to a toilet and 41 million urban dwellers practicing open defecation; making it the worst in the world for urban sanitation. This not only puts people, especially young children, at risk of potentially fatal disease but has a knock-on effect on the country’s productivity and economic growth.

According to the UN, there are nearly 400 slums in Agra with many people living in squalor and without access to basic sanitation facilities.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Bangladesh ranks sixth in the world for having the greatest number of urban dwellers - living in cities like Dhaka - without access to a toilet. Of the 700 million urban dwellers living without a toilet worldwide, 23 million of them are in Bangladesh.

WaterAid’s Chief Executive Barbara Frost said:

“This World Toilet Day using just toilet rolls, Anastassia has depicted beautifully crafted toilet roll cities – from London to Agra - to demonstrate that healthy cities are built on good sanitation.

“Cities should be a place for sustainable lifestyles offering healthy living, good infrastructure, wellbeing and economic growth. But the reality is that one person in every five living in a town or city today does not have access to a toilet or good sanitation and many live in poverty in overcrowded, rapidly expanding informal settlements.

"Not only does this lead to a lack of dignity for women and girls and health risks to poor families, this lack of sanitation also threatens the health and security of all city dwellers and leads to pollution of rivers and water sources.”

Artist, Anastassia Elias, said:

“I have always enjoyed experimenting with materials that people might otherwise throw away, which is why I started working with toilet rolls; recreating scenes from my surroundings that have inspired me. People sometimes find it surprising that I make art out of such an ordinary, everyday household item but I think their size and my use of perspective helps to draw people in to another world.

"That is why I am delighted to be working with WaterAid this World Toilet Day to create these tiny toilet roll cities, which I hope will help raise awareness of the staggering 700 million people living in towns and cities across the world without access to a toilet, something which so many of us take for granted.”

This World Toilet Day, WaterAid is calling for:

Everyone living in urban areas, including slums, to be reached with a toilet to ensure public health is protected.

More money, better spent from governments and donors on sanitation, clean water and hygiene for the urban poor.

Better coordination from all actors in the sanitation chain including governments, city planners, NGOs, the private sector, informal service providers and citizens.

Sanitation workers to be given the respect they deserve with stable employment, safety and decent pay. Without them healthy communities and cities are impossible.

These toilet roll cities are supported by Andrex® who will announce a new partnership with WaterAid this World Toilet Day. Andrex® is working with WaterAid to improve community toilets in Dhaka and Chittagong for better public health and increased human dignity.

Toilet facilities in these cities are showing serious signs of neglect; and are not well managed. However, with funding and support from Andrex, WaterAid will make possible up to 100,000 visits to clean and safe community toilets in the first 12 months of the programme.

ENDS

For more information, to see the full photo gallery of toilet roll cities or arrange interviews please contact Rosie Stewart, Senior Media Officer, on [email protected] or on 0207 793 4943 or Fiona Callister, Global Media Relations Lead, on [email protected] or 0207 793 5022. Or call our after-hours press line on 07887 521 552 or email [email protected].

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